


Tutoring

by Foilfreak



Series: A Family in all but Heritage: Why the Blood of the Covenent runs thicker than the Water of the Womb [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Child!Shanks, Competent Buggy, Competent!Buggy, Gen, Shanks needs a tutor, Shanks struggles in school, Tutoring, and a hell of a lot better at explaining stuff than Rayleigh or Crocus, child!Buggy, good thing Buggy is nearby, he just has a hard time sometimes, he’s not dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-08-20 11:22:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20227045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foilfreak/pseuds/Foilfreak
Summary: Of all the lessons Shanks had received since coming aboard the Oro Jackson, reading and writing had to be among his least favorite subjects. Unfortunately for him, Shanks finds himself stuck in the library with orders to not leave it until he’s finished with his daily homework. Even more unfortunate, is that apparently reading comprehension doesn’t come quite as easily to Shanks as it does to his blue haired companion. Thankfully, Buggy is willing to lend Shanks a hand so that they can both be free to enjoy the rest of their day without Rayleigh breathing down their backs. Reading with Shanks is definitely a pain sometimes, but even Buggy has to admit that it’s never quite as fun without his friend.





	1. Struggle

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and welcome to my new trainwreck of a short story. For those of you who don't know me, I go by Foilfreak here on the inter webs, and I am very well known for writing some of the most self-indulgent fanfiction the internet has ever had the misfortune of reading. Today’s catastrophe is based on a conversation that Dragowolf and I had at some point in the past, in fact, most of the fics I have planned for this AU will be based on a conversation that I had with Dragowolf at some point in the past, so at this point you could consider them my co-author, since this AU would not be quite as big as it is without their help and enabling. Anyways, thanks for clicking on my story and I hope you all enjoy the newest installment in my trip down self-indulgent lane!

It was a breezy summer’s day in East Blue, and despite the recent spot of bad weather they’d been experiencing, today’s ambient weather had been rather kind to the Roger Pirates, as they sailed leisurely toward their next destination, having just left Logue Town, Roger’s home island, the day before. Unfortunately for Shanks and Buggy, neither boy were allowed to go outside onto the main deck and enjoy the lovely weather until they were finished with their homework.

“This sucks” Shanks complains, a pout spread across his face as he procrastinates on finishing his work by playing with his pencil. Seated on his knees in the chair next to him, because he’d be too short if he sat down normally, Buggy worked quietly and diligently on the work that had been assigned to him, seemingly absorbed in the page-long passages of text that filled up the workbook Crocus had given him. 

Looking over at his own workbook, Shanks couldn’t help but notice how meagerly short his own passages were compared to Buggy’s, and yet while his blue haired companion had no trouble getting lost in the little stories or answering the comprehension questions at the end of each passage, Shanks found that he was barely able to read more than 2 sentences before feeling the need to stab his eyes out with a fork, and even if he did manage to make it to the end of the paragraph, the comprehension questions he had to answer regarding what happened in the story made absolutely no sense to him whatsoever. Sometimes Shanks wondered if he’d even read the right passage.

Heaving a sigh, Shanks drops his head onto the pages of his workbook, closing his eyes and willing himself to just fall asleep. Something pokes him in the side of the head.

“Ow” the redhead complains, lifting his hand to rub at the spot where Buggy had just jabbed him with his pencil.

“You’re getting distracted again” Buggy says without looking up from his own workbook. “If Rayleigh comes back in here and sees that you haven’t done anything, he’s gonna keep you in here for the rest of the day.”

Shanks groans in annoyance. “I just don’t get it, I mean what’s even the point of doing this sort of stuff. We’re pirates aren’t we, so why are we stuck doing stupid civilian things like homework when we should be outside doing whatever we want like everyone else.”

Buggy shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t mind it.”

“That’s because you’re actually good at this sort of stuff” Shanks grumbles under his breath, leaning his head back down and glaring at the wall. A long period of silence passes between the two boys as Shanks avoids doing his work at all cost, while Buggy continues working on his. About an hour and a half after Rayleigh threw Shanks and Buggy into the library and ordered them to not come out until they finished their work, the vice-captain finally returns.

“How are we doing on our work?” Rayleigh asks, leaning over to see how far both boys have gotten. Shanks immediately stiffens, moving to cover his still empty workbook page with his hands. Rayleigh notices this and snatches the book from Shanks’ grasp, and upon seeing the still-blank pages, his expression turns to a disappointed frown. 

“Shanks, I hope you realize that until those two pages in front of you are completed and checked by either Crocus or I, you will **not **be leaving this room” the vice captain says sternly. Shanks averts his gaze and remains silent as Rayleigh returns the book to him.

Rayleigh heaves a frustrated sigh and turns to Buggy.

“How about you Buggy? Have you finished the pages I assigned you earlier?” Buggy does not immediately answer the question, instead continuing to write in the book for another 5 seconds or so, before putting his pencil down and handing the book over to Rayleigh, who takes it, going back 10 pages or so, before slowly flipping through each one, taking a moment to read the responses Buggy wrote down on each page. Once he finally reaches the page that Buggy finished on, he closes the book and hands it back to the blue haired boy with a satisfied smile on his face.

“Very good, Buggy. Exceptional answers as always” Rayleigh praises, reaching forward to pat the young boy on the head, which causes a small smile to spread across Buggy’s face as he clutches the workbook in his hands.

“Can I have it back now… please?” Buggy asks, looking up at Rayleigh. 

“Have you finished all your other chores?” 

Buggy nods his head in response. “Ya, I finished them this morning before breakfast” the blue-haired boy says with an eager nod. Rayleigh hums in response, moving toward one of the book shelves that lined the walls of the library and reaching up on top of one of the shelves, where a red leather bound book had been placed for safe keeping. Rayleigh walks back over to Buggy and hands him back his book.

“Here you are, Buggy, you’re free to go and enjoy the rest of your day” Rayleigh says. Buggy takes the book and holds it to his chest as he hops down from his chair, before trotting out of the library to go finish reading his book elsewhere on the ship. The vice captain turns back to shanks with a stern expression.

“As for you, you’re not to leave this room until those two pages are finished and you’re answers have been approved by either Crocus or I, do you understand?” Shanks lowers his head, fiddling with the hem of his shirt, a saddened look on his face.

“Yes, sir” the redhead replies dejectedly, placing his book back on the table and turning back to face forward in his seat. Rayleigh turns and exits the room, closing the library door behind him, leaving Shanks to sit alone, by himself, with nothing but a pencil and a page pull of words that don’t mean anything to him, to keep him company.


	2. A Little Help

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter. Enjoy!

Hours pass by at an agonizingly slow pace as Shanks attempts to make his way through the homework that Rayleigh assigned him earlier that day so that he could be done with it and go out to enjoy the beautiful summer’s day.

At first he tried just powering through it. It was only two pages, and while the material he had to read to answer the comprehension questions was dull and boring at best, Shanks did his best to read through everything and answer the questions as quickly and simply as possible. A small feeling of pride spread throughout Shanks’ chest as he took his workbook and exited the library so that he could get his work checked and finally be free to do as he pleased for the rest of the day. Unfortunately Shanks’ pride was immediately crushed upon being told by Rayleigh that his answers were too simple, to the point where they hardly answered the questions asked, and that he’d have to go back and fix them so that they were more detailed.

The second time around, Shanks absolutely filled the lines he was given with words. Every possible way he could answer the given question was written down on the page, and hopefully it would be enough to cover all his bases and provide Rayleigh with the satisfactory amount of detail that the vice captain felt was missing from Shanks’ first round of answers. Surely this time Shanks’ answers would be enough to grant him the ok and let him off the hook for the rest of the day, right? Wrong. This time around Rayleigh insisted that Shanks’ answers had too much in them, and were practically meaningless because instead of adding detailed explanations to his answers, he basically just repeats the same thing over and over again, but in a different wording each time. Shanks’s answers were still not correct, so he’d have to go back and fix them again.

Now Shanks was really starting to get annoyed with this whole thing. Not only had his answers been denied twice, but Shanks still had absolutely no idea how to fix them so that they were up to Rayleigh’s standards, and the incredibly vague and indiscript advice the vice captain gave were of absolutely no help whatsoever. That’s it, Shanks was done. There was no way he was going to be able to get his homework done before dinner time as it was, so he might as well just call it quits, take a nap, and deal with the consequences of not finishing later.

Just moments after Shanks had roughly closed his workbook, shoved it aside, and placed his head down against the table to go to sleep, the door opened. In a blind panic, Shanks grabbed the workbook and ripped it open to a random page, shoving his nose into it as he pretended to be reading whatever it was on the page so Rayleigh wouldn’t have a reason to hit him.

“Still having trouble with that, huh?”

Shanks released the breath he didn’t know he had been holding as the sound of Buggy’s voice fills the otherwise empty library. The redhead allows his tense body to relax as the smaller boy approaches where Shanks was sitting, placing his book onto the table, before climbing onto the chair he had occupied earlier.

“You scared the crap out of me” Shanks whines as Buggy settles into a kneeling position on the chair next to him, opening his book up to the page he had left it on.

The blue haired boy merely shrugs. “Maybe you wouldn’t have to worry so much about getting caught if you just did your work” Buggy says simply, and although Shanks knows his friend doesn’t mean anything by it, the redhead cant help the slight twinge of shame that spreads throughout his chest over his inability to just do his homework.

Buggy, noticing his companion’s sudden deflation, sighs, closing his book and pushing it aside, before climbing down from his chair and heading over to one of the bookshelves that lined the walls of the library. After a moment of looking around, Buggy pulls down a second copy of the workbook that Shanks was currently using, a copy that used to be Buggy’s before the blue haired boy finished it several weeks ago, demanding to be given something more challenging to do immediately after finishing it.

Walking back to the table, Buggy throws the workbook at Shanks before climbing back into his seat, taking a second to settle in before taking the book back from his friend, and beginning to open it.

“What pages are you supposed to be working on?” Buggy asks, turning to look at a rather confused Shanks. The redhead blinks for a moment before snapping out of his dazed state, moving to flip back to that page that he was actually supposed to be working on.

“Uh… 52 and 53” Shanks answers. Buggy wastes no time in flipping to those pages, taking a moment to read over what he had written down, before grabbing Shanks’ workbook and reading over what his companion had written down for his answers.

“Are you gonna let me copy your answers?” Shanks asks, lowering his voice in case someone where around to hear him, and more importantly, snitch on him.

Buggy rolls his eyes. “No, I’m not letting you copy my answers, dummy. I’m comparing what you have to what I wrote so that I can see where you went wrong in understanding the passage and how I can help you fix it” Buggy explains, dropping his gaze back down to the workbook.

A moment of silence passes before Buggy finally finishes going over Shanks’ work. The smaller boy hands the workbook back to his friend before scooting his chair over to sit closer to him.

“Ok, let's start out by rereading the passage on page 52. After that, we’ll work through the comprehension questions one by one” Buggy instructs, and although Shanks would rather do anything but reread this boring passage, he does as he’s told, and begins reading aloud.

“Jonas is going apple picking with his sister Maria. They are going to the apple orchard near their house. They need to pick twelve apples. Their mom is going to use the apples to make a big apple pie. At the orchard, Jonas picked nine apples and Maria picked three. They had a great day together. Now they can’t wait to enjoy their pie!” Shanks finishes reading, turning to Buggy for further instruction.

“Ok good. Now that you’ve read the entire passage aloud, let’s start on the first question. Read that” Buggy says, pointing to the first question.

Taking a deep breath, Shanks begins reading. “Where is Jonas going, and who is he going with?”

“Great. Now answer the question” Buggy instructs, looking at Shanks as though this were the most simple task he could possibly ask of his red headed friend. For Buggy, this probably was a fairly simple question to answer, and yet Shanks, for the life of him, couldn’t think of a single thing to put down for it.

A moment of silence passes as Shanks stares blankly at the page in front of him, the feeling of Buggy’s eyes boring into the side of his head only exacerbating the redheads anxiety.

“I don’t know” Shanks finally admits after several minutes of just sitting there in silence, unsure of what to do.

“Reread the first two sentences again” Buggy instructs, his expression blank and unreadable.

Shanks does as he’s told and rereads the first two sentences of the passage aloud.

“Now reread the question again” Buggy instructs.

Shanks does as he’s told and rereads the first comprehension question, slightly confused as to what Buggy hopes to achieve with having him do this.

“What do you notice about the first two lines of the passage and the first comprehension question?” Buggy asks finally.

Shanks drops his gaze back down to his workbook without answering, his gaze passing back and forth between the beginning of the passage and the first comprehension question. At first, he’s at a loss as to what Buggy is trying to point out to him, but after a few moments of just rereading… 

“OH, I get it! The first two lines of the paragraph answer the first question” Shanks says excitedly, finally getting the point Buggy was trying to get across to him.

“Yup, that’s how all these passages work” Buggy explains, smiling slightly. “The answers to the questions are always hidden somewhere in the paragraph. All you have to do is find them.”

“Ok, I think I can do that” Shanks says, turning back to the workbook and beginning the same process that Buggy taught him to answer the rest of the questions.

It took a while, Shanks still wasn’t entirely sure where to look for the answers at times, and got stumped more than once, but soon enough, the redhead had answered all the questions for the passage that he had been assigned, and was ready to get his answers approved by Rayleigh.

“Just go up to him and have him check the answers.”

“But what if he says they’re wrong?”

“He’s not gonna say they’re wrong.”

“But what if he says they aren’t good enough?”

“I checked your answers and they’re fine, so just go up and have him check so we can get on with our day.”

Apparently this was going to be more difficult than originally anticipated, since Shanks wasn’t confident enough in his answers to have Rayleigh check them, fearing that the vice-captain would only shoot them down like he did before. Upon Buggy’s insistence however, the redhead finally worked up the nerve to approach the vice-captain, who had been talking to Crocus until just recently.

“Ah Shanks, there you are. I was wondering when you’d finally be finished with that. Have you done what I said and redone your questions?” Rayleigh asks, turning to acknowledge Shanks’ presence.

Shanks swallows thickly, nodding his head. “Ya, I did.”

“Well good. In that case, let's give them a look shall we?” Rayleigh responds, extending his hand out with an expectant look on his face.

Shanks says nothing as he hands Rayleigh his workbook, his palms sweating slightly as the vice-captain flips to the pages Shanks was working on, and reads through his answers thoroughly.

A moment of tense silence passes before a surprised, but pleased look crosses Rayleigh’s face. The older man closes the book and hands it back to Shanks before speaking.

“Very good Shanks, these are much better than your earlier answers. I’m pleased to see that you took my advice and applied it to your work for once.”

“So, does that mean I can go now?” Shanks asks, a hopeful look on his face.

Rayleigh smiles and nods his head. “Yes Shanks, you are free to go now.”

“YAY!!!” Shanks yells happily, jumping up and down before hightailing it back to the library where Buggy was waiting for him, before Rayleigh could stop him or change his mind last minute.

“BUGGY!” Shanks shouts happily as he bursts into the library, catching his younger friend off guard as he shoves the workbook in his face. “You were right! Rayleigh said my answers were really good this time!”

“Told you” Buggy says, looking not in the least bit surprised by the news.

“Now we can go on deck and read, come on hurry up” the redhead demands, his excitement over finally being done with his homework overcoming him as he practically sprints out of the library and toward the main deck of the Oro Jackson.

“Hey Shanks, wait up. You’re not gonna get any reading done without me” Buggy yells after him, hopping down from his chair, book in arms, and running after his friend, leaving the workbooks behind to be dealt with some other time, in favor of spending the rest of the unusually calm and tranquil day reading together and having a good time, as pirates always should.

“Hey Buggy?”

“What is it?”

“Will you help me with my homework again tomorrow?”

“Huh? But I already taught you how to work through the comprehension questions? Why do you need my help again?”

“‘Cuz it's just more fun to do when you’re around. Plus you’re a way better teacher than Rayleigh or Crocus.”

“Ugh. Fine, I can help you.”

“Thanks Buggy!”

“Ya whatever, you’re welcome. Now stop squirming around or I wont read to you.”

“Alright, fine, don’t get your panties in a wad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed. Leave kudos, comment, and i hope to see you all soon for the next story. Bye!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoyed this! Make sure to leave kudos and a comment down below telling me your thoughts about this chapter! Thanks so much for reading and I hope to see you all soon for chapter 2. Bye!!!


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